WSC's War Stories: Trinidad desk September 4, 2001

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WHISKEY SIERRA CHARLIE's
WAR STORIES

Trinidad desk: Tuesday, September 4, 2001.

I had been looking forward to a nice quiet day. I had checked lineups the previous day to see how much traffic was coming, and it looked like things would be light between Texline and Pueblo.

When I came to work, Trinidad was clear, two westbounds (an HFTWLAU and a coal empty) were out of Walsenburg heading for Pueblo, one westbound empty was out of Texline, and 2 eastbound loads were between Barela and Trinchere. No east trains were even called out of Pueblo.

Well, things WERE quiet -- for about the first hour. Most of the section guys who were still out when I started 2nd shift cleared up in the first hour, and I was ready to move the few trains that I had. When the empty (EMONJRM054, BNSF 9826 west) that was out of Texline got to CTC Des Moines and cleared his track warrant, I told him he was going to head in at Alps to meet the two loads. Soon afterward, the first load called me on the Trinchere radio to say they had stalled at mp 262, on the 1 % grade. The train was a CYCMBOX052, 110 loads - 14327 tons, with engines BNSF 8979 / 4305 / 4726 -- a SD70Mac / C44-9W / C44-9W trio. The York Canyon - Box trains come off the Raton Sub at Trinidad, and, due to the way the connecting track between the former BN and former Santa Fe mains is set up, the trains have to come into the BN yard and use a clear track to run the power to the opposite end to the train before heading east on the Twin Peaks Sub toward Texline. You never know what you're going to get for power on the Box trains, but you usually know it won't be good. The Raton dispatcher usually runs those trains over Raton Pass in two cuts -- with about 3 units on the head end and 3 more shoving... but usually only 2 or 3 of the three head-end units run through to us. Today's train was large enough to rate three units. Out of Trinidad, the Box trains frequently have an all-GE consist, or a mix of GE's and Mac's like the consist on today's train. Most of our coal loads on this territory operate with distributed power in a 2X1 configuration, but the Box trains are usually conventionally powered (all locomotives on the head end). 110 cars is exceptionally large for a Box train; we frequently run them under a hundred cars. Anyway, they stalled due to the 4726 getting hot traction motors and shutting down. The crew spent 45 minutes or so talking to the BNSF Mechanical desk, trying various procedures to try and restart the engine -- cutting out various traction motors and so forth -- all to no avail. The engine was dead. They would need another engine to get over the road to Texline. Fortunately, the empty running against them had a consist of four Macs - BNSF 9826 / BN 9636 / BN 9561 / BNSF 8868. All were on the head end, and all were running, which was good news. Meanwhile, the 2nd load -- CBKMHAF064, BNSF 9845 E, was already behind them past Trinchere -- and would have to stop on the side of the hill -- and there are very few good places to stop a loaded train between Trinchere and Branson. They thought THEY would need help pulling out of whereever they stopped if they had to cut off and shove the train ahead. The BKMHAF was a distributed power train, so they cut off their head two units, tied their train down, and headed up the hill toward the rear of the CYCMBOX to give them a shove.

Meanwhile, the empty had arrived at East Alps, but I decided to hold them and not head them in, in case we had time to get them over to Branson before the first load -- the stalled one -- started moving again. I checked with the crew on the load and they said they would need a shove from mp 262 all the way to Alps, and that Alps would be a better place than Branson to try to do a power swap with the empty -- since Branson would be an extremely hard pull after stopping to swap power there. So I held the empty at the east end of Alps to do the power swap. By this time my two other westbounds had made it into Southern Jct, so the three remaining trains I had on my territory were ALL stopped, plus I had a fourth crew on duty at Pueblo waiting for track warrants, and the computers were down! I had sent the warrants to Pueblo before the computer crashed, but apparently the paper in the printer at Pueblo was mis-alligned and the copy the crew received was unusable. I gathered up a stack of track bulletins and TCM's -- some 20 pages in all -- and tried to fax them to the crew at Pueblo. It took some 3 or 4 tries on 2 different fax machines before they finally went through.

Back on the Twin Peaks Sub, the power from the CBKMHAF was shoving the first load through Branson. A short while later, the Dragging Equipment Detector at mp 266, east of Branson, sounded a dragging equipment alarm on axles 390 and 391 -- near the rear of the Box coal train. The crew on the "helpers" shoving on their rear end said they could see dust or smoke coming up from one of the cars -- about 15 or 20 cars from the rear of the train. So they stopped and the rear-end crew walked up and found a car with dragging brake rigging. The car would have to be set out on the back track at Alps, which is located off the siding. It's a good thing I hadn't already let the empty into the siding! The Box train would head into the siding, do their power swap with the empty at the east end -- the chief dispatcher instructed me to have the Box train give their two GE units -- the 4305 and the dead 4726 -- to the empty, and have the empty give their two middle units -- BN 9636 / BN 9561 to the Box loads. It would probably have been easier for the empty to give up their two rear units, but the empty's rear unit, the 8868, was a short-dater -- due FRA inspection in Alliance, NE in four days -- and would have to stay with the empty.

The power swap accomplished, the empty gave the Box train's conductor a ride down to the rear of their train to set out the bad order car. By now, I was beginning to worry about the hours of service on the two loads. It was after 1700 and the two eastbounds would go dead at 2130 and 2145, and it would be a 2 1/2 hour run for the first one, and over a three hour run for the second one -- which now believed they COULD get their train started from MP 258 -- the location where they cut away from their train to shove the first load. The Box train finally left Alps at 1830, giving them 3 hours to make what is usually a 2 1/2 hour run -- and the second load WAS able to pull out from MP 258 and did not stall, passing Branson at 1830 -- typically a 3 hour run which left them only 15 minutes to spare! The two trains made Texline at 2058 (32 minutes to spare) and 2125 (20 minutes to spare), respectively.

Delays were as follows:

CYCMBOX052 - 50 minutes (1505-1555) stalled at mp 262. 1 hour (1655 - 1755) minutes swapping power at Alps and setting out their bad order.

CBKMHAF064 - 3 hours (1445-1750) to tie their train down, shove the CYCMBOX to Alps, return light power to MP 258 and get back on the move.

EMONJRM054 - 2 hours 40 min. (1515-1755) - waiting on stalled Box train and then swapping power.

Also of interest...

While I was preoccupied with the Box train stall and bad order setout, the Amarillo dispatcher had finalled two westbounds to me -- HFTWLAU604 and UGATBNV103 (sulfur empties, Galveston - Bonneville, WY). I planned to hold the westbounds at Texline for the 2 short-time loads. As it turned out, the HFTWLAU ended up breaking a drawbar while heading into the siding at Boden (the 2nd siding west of Amarillo) so the finals didn't come anywhere close to holding up anyway!

At 1845, the 2nd load called out of Pueblo (the one behind the one that had trouble getting their track warrants (it was a CATMAMH with a Trough Train set) - called to say they thought they might have trouble on the hills. They had the BN 9715 leading 2 other Macs -- all on the head end -- of a 17670-ton train, admittedly pretty heavy for a conventionally powered train. On this desk, there are always power issues: mechanincal trouble, stalls, trains being underpowered, you name it. I also had to call fuel trucks for this load and the one ahead of it at Trinidad. I never did hear back from this train, as they did not leave Pueblo for some time after they called me and I ended up giving transfer to 3rd shift before ever hearing back from them.

Heard & overheard on the radio:

* When both loads were back on the move, I heard the crew on the first one telling the crew on the 2nd one to look for a BEAR on the engr's side between switches at Alps...the 2nd crew responded by telling the first crew that -- on their return trip -- to look for the scrap their car with the bad-order brake rigging had left between the rails at mp 265.5!

* When the first load met the empty at Alps, the crew on the empty asked them what happened, why it took them so long for them to get there: The crew on the load responded, "well, a black cat crossed our path, then we walked under a ladder, then we broke a mirror."

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